Don Payne: "Hanging In There!"

Don Payne, the man who has the distinction of running Beaker Street the last night on KAAY before administration shut the program down 'way back when, checks in with his latest prognosis:

"Hope everybody's doing ok.

Here's an update on how I'm doing as I continue to fight pancreatic cancer. I got the results back from last week's CT scan and it is showing the tumor on the liver is slightly smaller in size, and the one on the pancreas is about the same. The Doctors say this is good news, and not to be too concerned with the pancreas tumor not shrinking, it could be deceiving as we could be looking at dead cells in this type of scan. When they do blood work every week, they look at a certain protein level which tends to go up or down with the size of the tumors. Last week, this number was way down, which they were very happy about.

You may remember the scan last month showed a 23% shrinkage. I don't have the percentage on this report, but the tumor dropped from 14x8cm to 12x8cm in size. I'll take it!

(Don had attached a radiologist's report, but I didn't think it pertinant to post here...suffice it to say, we'll take the good news! bs)

I take chemo for 3 hours every Monday afternoon, the next one is this coming Monday. I do three sessions then skip a week, then do three more and repeat. I handle it pretty well but it seems to make me tired that evening and the next day. It was causing a fever for a few days after treatment but they are now giving me a pre-med which seems to have solved that problem. This makes things much better. The meds are new cutting edge and don't have the traditional side effects like nausea and hair loss. Although I noticed I am losing a little more hair lately, no big deal to me it was almost gone anyway.

Doctors took me off the blood thinners due to a small bleeding problem I'm having in my spleen. Seems that I tore the membrane around it several weeks ago and it's been a little tender. Doctors think the blood thinners may be causing it not to heal, but I need the thinners to prevent clots from the cancer. So they are watching carefully. I'm up and around and doing stuff like laundry and housework.

Michele is doing great and has been helping out at a resteraunt down the street making a few extra bucks a couple days a week. I am able to cut grass but the Doctors say they only want me driving close by the house due to some dizziness I was having. Some days I feel good, other days I'm tired and have headaches. So I'm following the Doctors orders and appreciate your thoughts and prayers. I will know more about what the Doctors are wanting to do after I meet with them Monday. I would imagine we are going to keep on track with what we have been doing.

I'm hanging in there for now.  Don"
 
Don, rest assured that we are behind you all the way.  Keep the good reports coming!
 
And, as I appealed for in an earlier post, if ANYONE has any air checks of Don at ANY station he worked at, please forward it/them to me at my e-mail address, or at least contact me as to where I may obtain such.  Thank you.
 
Bud S. (staceys4@hotmail.com)